The first week of rugba leeg finals has been run and won, and while we mock Peter V’Landy’s pronunciation of the sport, we must salute him getting this far despite all the odds of rugby league people being involved. In celebration, we produce our usual tedious data filled sports snack – NRL Finals Week 1 Stats and Stuff.
It was a weekend of NRL Finals that defied the usual logic of end of season football, with points a plenty, exciting games, and no Broncos.
Thankfully the refereeing was still awful to bring us back to normality..
But for the best bits of last weekend, and a few visuals to fill the rest of the space we couldn’t be bothered filling with more words, enjoy our NRL Finals Week 1 Stats and Stuff.
NRL Finals Week 1 Stats – Points of Interest
TRIES JUST BEFOPRE HALF TIME WIN GAMES
For years now we have been ranting that a try in the five minutes before half time leads to wins, and often it isn’t essential to be in front. By last count from the five seasons or so the win rate for a try scoring in that 5 minute window was around 75-80%.
This weekend it wasn’t quite 100% scoring in the last five minutes and winning, but the odd one out did score the last try in the first half, and in the 32nd minute.
So every team who scored the last first half try won.
Penrith 36th
Canberra 37th
Melbourne 32nd
Souths 35th
LOTS O POINTS
This weekend saw plenty of points scored, 235 in fact. Unexpected as finals football is usually determined by defense. But how does that rate against recent week 1 of the finals in the NRL?
- All teams scored 20+ for the first time going back to 2010. The next best is five teams with 20+ points in the first week of the finals in 2018 and 2014.
- Only 2018 saw the total points for Finals Week 1 over 200.
- It is the highest total of home points scored in week 1 of the finals. But only the third highest away scores total.
- The 92 points scored by the away teams was better than four seasons of home teams score totals going back to 2010.
OTHER BITS
- Sharks have failed to win a finals match since winning 2016 title.
- Joseph Tapine was the only player from a winning side in NRL Finals Week 1 who could either a first or last try.
- Gus Gould has officially declared that no one will win the premiership, and has suggested awarding the trophy to himself.
- There are just two more weeks of live Fox League coverage of rugby league this year.
NRL Finals Week 1 Stats – Graphs of Interest
Here’s some quick visuals on the best stats from NRL Finals Week 1 Stats
–
